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Awkwardness

No one likes awkwardness. It’s not comfortable. It’s kind of like a swarm of bees buzzing around in your stomach. Like that kid in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, who every time he spoke, bees would fly out.

In a crazy attempt to eliminate all awkwardness from my life, I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried to become a very well-read, knowledgeable person, who always knows the right thing to do in all circumstances. I never wanted to be caught nonplussed. I don’t want to open my mouth and have bees come out.

Those who know me know that it hasn’t worked out so well. I can easily transform into Chandler Bing from Friends at the drop of a hat.

I loathe the feeling of being caught without words. I detest the feeling of awkwardness I get when I know I’m not doing a job right because I lack the necessary information. So I crave routines and rituals [that I can break of course, when I want to. but woe to anyone else who tries to], lest I’m thrown off.

I’m especially awkward when I’m off my routine.

But awkwardness gets a bad rep. I’ve found that its, by far, the best teacher. When I’m awkwardly doing it the wrong ways, I am learning how to definitely not do it.

For instance I only had to mispronounce the word misled once in the right company to have it forever ingrained in my head the correct way.

Once you deal with awkwardness as much as I do, you get used to it. It doesn’t seem that bad. There are plenty of worse things. I’ve gotten used to doing and saying the complete wrong things to people. I’ve found that bees aren’t scary.